Wylie and Liliana

Wylie is in his early 30s and lives with autism, Tourette syndrome and a severe anxiety disorder.

‘He has always been a very very complex young person,’ his mother, Liliana, told the Royal Commission. ‘He’s always had a destructive behaviour. If things are old he will rip them apart, get rid of them, gone.’

Because of that behaviour, Wylie moved out of home and into supported accommodation in his teens. In his mid-20s he was ‘doing quite well’ and asked for his own unit.

‘He was left alone way too much,’ said Liliana. ‘And with that, the spiral began.’

Wylie began to demolish the unit and threaten his neighbours. It became so bad that one night health department staff moved him out of the unit and into a public housing apartment, where Liliana said he ’continued to damage, pull down curtains, everything’.

He was moved to a caravan park, causing ‘tens of thousands of dollars damage.’ After that, he was deemed homeless and admitted to a mental health facility.

Liliana doesn’t have much control over her son’s care. Wylie’s legal guardian is the public advocate, but Liliana said that during his eight months at the mental health facility, the guardian had little contact. Neither did Wylie’s behavioural consultant.

‘So it was sort of left up to [the facility] to medicate him [and] he would not eat hospital food. I was cooking and taking it in every day.’

The facility kept Wylie in his room, where he chose to sleep on the floor.

‘I don’t think the health system knows how to deal with someone with autism and extreme behaviours.’

Liliana said there appeared to be no plan to move him from the facility, so she wrote to the Premier. After that, the health department modified a house for Wylie, installing such things as a steel toilet and an indestructible mattress.

Wylie is supported by the NDIS, and a support service eventually moved him into the modified house with a full-time team.

‘I think they underestimated what he was capable of, unfortunately.’

Wylie pulled the walls and floor apart. While demolishing a steel shed in the backyard, he injured his leg. Staff were afraid to treat him and the leg became infected.

Liliana arrived another day to find ‘water seeping out from underneath the house because the showers in the house weren’t connected to drainage underneath’, and a sewer pipe leaking onto an area of artificial turf.

It was winter and Wylie had removed the walls. Staff told her they didn’t fix the house because her son had told them not to, even though Wylie was unable to make decisions for himself.

Lilian complained and the home was deemed uninhabitable. While it was being fixed the support service moved Wylie to a hotel, where he ripped out the toilet. He was admitted again to a mental health facility.

He refused to eat their meals, so the facility gave him the takeaway food he demanded ‘to try to keep him calm’, even though Wylie had diabetes.

‘They gave him three of those iced coffees a day … triple cheeseburgers lunch and dinner, a meat pie for breakfast chocolate muesli bars, potato chips. And that was his diet for two and a half months in that hospital.’

Liliana said medical staff, police and service providers often held Wylie to account for his actions, but by failing to explain the consequences of his actions to him and giving into his demands, they made his behaviour worse.

While Wylie was in the mental health facility, his service provider withdrew its support. Wylie’s support team resigned from that provider so they could stay with him.

‘They all signed over to the new provider because they love working with my son. They’re very special people … And he’s in a really good place.’

Wylie is now back in the house, but a more robust house is being designed.

‘I don’t want him in another mental health ward. Dumped for months.’